


The Chasm

by himitsutsubasa



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Established Relationship, Future Fic, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:08:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28809381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/himitsutsubasa/pseuds/himitsutsubasa
Summary: Eames is fancies himself an early adopter, like the Cobbs. He didn't invent forging, but he sure as hell perfected it.Arthur is something else entirely.
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 59





	The Chasm

Dreamsharing, at the end of the day, is a lot like the internet. It’s a lot like any new technology, but the internet is most apt. It’s a community, a link, a kind of place where you see projections of people you worked past jobs with puttering about in someone else’s subconscious and sometimes you meet someone in a dream before you meet them in real life.

Eames likes to think that he’s an early adopter. He fancies himself like the Cobbs, who showed up when the technology was shown to be stable, somewhat safe, and then ran with it. They made new things, brilliant bright and new changes and they made a small group of academics into a wide, wild west where anything was possible if you just dreamed hard enough.

Eames is, perhaps, most surprised when it makes the jump. The gap is notoriously tricky and only a few things ever make it from early adopters to the general public. But it does. Dreamsharing does what some technologies wish they could do. It crosses into legal and normal and suddenly, there’s dream therapy and dream courses and all sorts of silly made up things that make the marketing machine churn. Dreams are a commodity the way the wide web made a commodity out of people’s data and social media made a commodity out of people’s attention. There’s not as many vultures yet, but Eames can see them circling.

Ariadne is somewhere between an early adopter and the early majority. Dreamsharing was bleeding too much into the real world when they recruited her, but she cut her teeth on illegal work like he did. She had a taste of the wilderness just as it was disappearing.

He makes eye contact with Ariadne and she gives him a strained smile. Her smile has been strained these last few jobs. Probably time for a vacation.

She doesn’t consciously know that the rush of discovery is gone, he thinks, but she feels it. He can see it in the curve of her mouth and the twist of her lips when she has to work with someone who isn’t Yusuf. Someone who isn’t Eames. Someone who doesn’t understand dreamsharing at its base fundamentals because they walked into a world where dreamsharing was largely adopted and the world wasn’t so wild anymore. 

Lucky for her that he’s there otherwise she probably would have strangled their new chemist with her scarf. She’s older and as she’s gotten older, Eames can see what Dom saw in her. She’s a lot like Mal. She is a tempest of creative energy, but somehow more stable, more grounded. That stability is probably the only reason she hasn’t thrown in all her cards and called it quits because there’s no fun in dreamsharing now. The edges have been set and anything more is illegal. Running from the law got old, like them.

He can’t help but admire her as she explains to the client what they are capable of, what they can do. They do boutique dreams now, custom fantasies for the highest bidder. This lush little set up they’ve made is just a demo set, but they can easily turn this into something beyond the client’s wildest dreams.

Most places have moderately creative people making moderately fun fantasies that people can enjoy like they’re buying a ticket to Disneyland. It’s so corporate, so carefully doled out because your grandmother is doing dreamsharing now. There is no imagination. 

Eames wants to lie to himself and say that he’s doing something better than what those big corporate dreaming cafes do, but he’s still doling out a carefully measured fantasy until the kick.   
“Eames?”

Ariadne is waving him over and Eames goes. His step is perfect in those heels and he can feel the mark’s eyes glaze over a little. He’s some pretty social media star that apparently everyone knows. Eames doesn’t remember names these days. They come and go so quickly and she’s just here to act as a demo anyway.

The client stares at him in awe and Eames knows that this man has never had a dream that wasn’t pre-packaged. It’s like biting into a fresh vegetable after eating exclusively out of a can. You can’t go back.

“Are you?”

“Yes,” Eames purrs. “But I can be anyone you want.”

The next skin is more familiar, it’s one he doesn’t need a mirror for. He smiles languidly and the client is flabbergasted. Marilynn Monroe has that effect on people when he’s the one wearing her skin. The next face and the next until he’s wearing Clint Eastwood’s face and humming in his voice while Ariadne concludes the demonstration.

The soft strings opening of “Call Me Maybe” start playing and he starts wondering if they should have gone back to Taylor Swift. This song is old, eight years out of date at this point, but Ariadne likes it.

Then there’s the kick and Eames is pulling the needle out of his arm nice and easy. 

They’re back in their Parisian studio. Warm afternoon sunlight washes the room in beautiful light and he can faintly hear the client coming to. 

He doesn’t need his poker chip to tell him that this is reality. He’s spent so much time in Ariadne’s sets now that he can tell. She is still meticulous with her work, but there’s a level of soft focus in her dreams that wasn’t there when they were pulling an inception. 

He asked her about it once and she laughed, her head thrown back. It was the most bitter laugh he’d ever heard. He had practiced it after, thinking about what she said. 

There, they were pulling off the world’s most difficult magic trick. Every last detail had to be perfect so it wouldn’t suspend their disbelief. Here, the client already bought into their magic trick before they even put the needle in their arm. Also, it was the aesthetic now. Soft focus dreams. Sold better.

Money makes the world go ‘round.

He can hear the soft rustling as Ariadne arranges the contracts for the deal. She’s probably going to upsell the client into a three dream package, possibly six. He had looked so spellbound earlier. 

The client gives Eames an odd look when he leaves and Eames gives him a small smile in return. It’s always odd, for them. Seeing him in real life, they keep looking at him like they expect to see someone else. Eames knows. Eames understands. He looks in the mirror and expects to see someone else too.

* * *

Arthur is one of the few people Eames doesn’t get tired of seeing. Every time he sees Arthur, it's like seeing him for the first time.

“Ariadne!"

“Arthur!”

Ariadne tosses her arms around Arthur’s neck and Arthur laughs. 

Eames isn’t jealous. Eames knows about the kiss. He knows that Ariadne had a crush on Arthur for a year afterwards and that it had fizzled out eventually. He knows that Arthur, beautiful Arthur, is not doing showing up at their office to bring out a fever in her.

Ariadne has let go of Arthur now and she’s telling him all about this restaurant that the three of them should go to and how the dessert there is divine. Her smile is a little less strained, but Eames can see the sell there. She’s not smiling from her heart.

Arthur’s eyes flit to him and his voice is like caramelized honey.

“Eames.”

This is all for him. He should do something about it.

“I think we should skip dinner, love. Long day. We should get some rest.” 

He’s not sure if that’s for Ariadne or for Arthur.

Ariadne gives Arthur a once over and Eames has never been so glad that Arthur picked up some acting skills from him over the years because if anyone could figure out Arthur wanted to ditch for other plans, it would be Ariadne. 

Under her discerning eye, Arthur passes muster. She turns and gives Eames a bright smile, a real one. “Alright! I’ll see you tomorrow then. Raincheck on dinner.”

Arthur takes his hand when he offers it and they walk down a quiet Parisian street into the evening light. They turn one corner after another enjoying each other’s silence.

* * *

If asked, Eames might say Arthur is an innovator. To be sure, his name is not on any of the patents and most of the earliest innovators are dead or insane now, but when the Cobbs showed up at the end of the innovation age, Arthur was already there. Arthur was already walking through people’s dreams like he was made for it. In every sense, he was or it was made for him. Eames still isn’t sure, because like the internet, dreamsharing was born in a military lab and Arthur, no more than eighteen, had been present at the messy birth. It’s a demonstration of strength that even after everything, Arthur remains.

Cobb might be out of the game, but Arthur is still playing and Arthur is still one of the best. Unlike Eames, who is disillusioned with his job, even if he likes the actual work, Arthur loves his job and loves the work. Arthur runs with the wolves that plague people’s nightmares like he is one. He is relentless, indomitable, and dangerously good at what he does, but incredibly humble at the same time. He’s got the best militarized subconscious in the world. His business of making the minds of people who hold nuclear codes in their hands just as tough is doing quite well. He's just that good.

Also, Arthur wears more suits now, Eames thinks. An unequivocal win for anyone with eyes.

“You’re unnaturally quiet today.”

Arthur is watching a video on his phone in bed. It’s some silly true crime series and Eames always rolls his eyes, but this? This is his Arthur, his mystery wrapped in an enigma tucked in a nesting doll. Who knows what kind of deep depths are in a youtube show about ghosts?

“Just thinking.”

Arthur puts his phone on the bedside table, on its charging pad, and turns to Eames. “Don’t think too hard. You’ll strain something.”

Eames chuckles and presses a kiss to Arthur’s temple, to the grey hairs that make Arthur look distinguished instead of just plain old. “I knew you only loved me for my body.”

Arthur presses a soft kiss to his lips and Eames is sad he isn’t as young as he used to be. “Was that ever in doubt?”

“Do you miss it?” Eames asks between kisses. 

Arthur pauses and Eames finds warm brown eyes, like toffee or caramel, meeting his own. 

“Yes, but I prefer this more.”

“I think I might quit,” Eames admits. It’s hard, he thinks, to keep up this act. He’s not young anymore. He keeps saying that. He’s not young anymore, because it is true. He’s tired of playing pretend when he’s playing boring roles.

Arthur chuckles and presses a kiss to Eames’ cheek. A hand comes up and cradles his nape and Eames leans into the touch. 

“You and Ariadne both say that. You should pick up a different client list, like mine.”

Eames chuckles from where he’s nibbling on Arthur’s ear. “You’re kidding me.”

Arthur is not kidding. He has a slide deck on his phone explaining exactly why he thinks Eames and Ariadne should work for him and Eames thinks he’s absolutely ridiculous and also thinks that this is absolutely the man he fell in love with.

Arthur doesn’t even notice Eames’ besotted look. He’s still going through the slides and saying, “I think you two are wasted on it and I like having partners I can trust.”

Eames takes the phone out of Arthur’s hand and sets it back on the bedside table. “You know my answer is yes.”

Arthur’s lips lift at the corners, a bit sorrowful. “You just need to talk Ariadne around.”

“She’ll go,” Eames says with certainty. She wants to, even if she doesn’t know how to verbalize it yet. She loves her little studio with all her underlings, but she doesn’t have to be there. In fact, the only reason she’s doing demos again is her desire for adventure. She thinks that by giving it to others, she can sate it in herself. She will learn she can’t.

He snuggles into the space between Arthur’s neck and collarbone, pressing soft little kisses along the harsh line. “I love you.”

“I know.” Eames can hear the soft rumble of laughter in Arthur’s chest.

They fall asleep like that and Eames thinks that while the wild west is gone, they remain.

**Author's Note:**

> Late night thoughts about that business class I TA'd for.


End file.
